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> Eh, I mean we've been building computer chips for approximately the same amount of time as computer software, and it's pretty clear chip engineering is more l

by Drew_ 5y ago

> Eh, I mean we've been building computer chips for approximately the same amount of time as computer software, and it's pretty clear chip engineering is more like civil engineering than software engineering. Is it actually anything like civil engineering? To my knowledge chip engineering revolves around yield. There's no such analogous concept in designing buildings that can only be reasonably constructed correctly 70% of the time and attempting to reuse the bad buildings for other projects.

habitue 5y ago
Sure, and civil engineering is really different from chemical engineering. But those are minor compared with the differences between physical engineering disciplines and software engineering. Software engineers: - cost of components is $0 (use one class or split into 2, there is no cost metric to decide) - physics don't apply to components (we can't use this doping agent because X or Y. We need to move the factory to an area of low seismic activity to improve yields etc.. etc..) Basically, physical engineers have so many constraints, solving the problem is the hard part. Software engineers have so few constraints, usually solving the problem is the easy part, and we have time left over to argue about abstract cleanliness concepts like composition vs. inheritance and such. (Again, this is the rule, the exception is problems like "We need this service to do 2 million requests per second", and there we don't argue about functional vs. OOP, you do anything you can to hit the number)
- Drew_ 5y ago
  Well I think this is just a case of easy Software Engineering vs hard Software Engineering where the requirements are hard to satisfy. Most of the industry does easy Engineering and that's what we talk about for the most part. The part of the industry that does hard engineering (the largest orgs, developers of mission critical systems like weapons) keep mostly quiet about how they solve their problems because that's a trade secret or highly classified.
8note 5y ago
Buildings are constructed correctly closer to 10% of the time, I assume. The ones built incorrectly still get used, just with lower lifespans and are more likely to run into issues.

by Drew_ 5y ago

habitue 5y ago

Sure, and civil engineering is really different from chemical engineering. But those are minor compared with the differences between physical engineering disciplines and software engineering. Software engineers: - cost of components is $0 (use one class or split into 2, there is no cost metric to decide) - physics don't apply to components (we can't use this doping agent because X or Y. We need to move the factory to an area of low seismic activity to improve yields etc.. etc..) Basically, physical engineers have so many constraints, solving the problem is the hard part. Software engineers have so few constraints, usually solving the problem is the easy part, and we have time left over to argue about abstract cleanliness concepts like composition vs. inheritance and such. (Again, this is the rule, the exception is problems like "We need this service to do 2 million requests per second", and there we don't argue about functional vs. OOP, you do anything you can to hit the number)

Drew_ 5y ago
Well I think this is just a case of easy Software Engineering vs hard Software Engineering where the requirements are hard to satisfy. Most of the industry does easy Engineering and that's what we talk about for the most part. The part of the industry that does hard engineering (the largest orgs, developers of mission critical systems like weapons) keep mostly quiet about how they solve their problems because that's a trade secret or highly classified.

8note 5y ago

Buildings are constructed correctly closer to 10% of the time, I assume. The ones built incorrectly still get used, just with lower lifespans and are more likely to run into issues.